Re: long-term fun

From: archer@hsc.fr (Vincent Archer)

Date: Tue, 09 Feb 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Enno Rehling (rehling@usa.net) wrote:
> How do you achieve long-term playability in a strategic pbem? I'm talking
> about more than just a hundred or two hundred turns.

Which long-term playability do you aim for? You can attempt to achieve
either long-term playability for a player, or for the game in general, and
both require different mechanisms.

Olympia, as outlined somewhere else, has a good way of ensuring a longer
playability by making sure the usual exponential growth of a faction is
remade into a linear growth. This doesn't ensure an infinite playability,
however. Wait a thousand turns, and you might end up with a faction ten
times larger than most.

Of course, a thousand turns means more than 19 years, so I doubt the gamer
will last that long, but who knows :)

I subscribe to the school of tought that it is better to "oust gently"
elder players to make room for newer ones. Elders may choose to remain,
but they have to play accordingly, deliberately shaping their actions in
a non-optimum path to stay at the stage where they can play.

To achieve that, you have to ensure:

- A sense of achievement, similar to closed games, but where closure doesn't
  end the game for everyone else.
- A way of encouraging conflict over equals or similar-stage players over
  conflicts between the elder mega-power and the underdog.
- A way of encouraging elders to protect, and/or support beginners, without
  motivating these elders to jump-start the newer players to their stage.

I am currently working on the design of Alderson, a sci-fi space empire
game with those goals in mind.  Alderson is open-ended, but I plan to have
players rotate over time, with an average alderson interest (faction/clan)
lasting about a 100 to 150 turns overall.

To this, I use mainly the trick of technologies.  You start with basic
technologies, but as technology progress, your potential grows.  Technology
is the real medium there, not material possessions. So, the highly advanced
interest has few reasons to attack a new players : not many technologies to
pillage (in reverse, a new player may attempt to take on a more advanced one,
because the potential reward is high).

The Imperium (the basic support mechanism) declare you enemy if you master
too many outlawed technologies; you then have to deal using intermediates
(other factions not outlawed yet). You depend on them, but can protect them.
And you do not want to push them too fast, because they'd become outlaws
themselves.

Closure is achieved by Transcendence - which occurs when you get too many
technologies faster than you can put them to good use.  You can avoid
transcendence - by discarding technologies you'd otherwise use, and thus
remaining at a lesser stage. Transcended interests leave relics, to make
things interesting for others. Each player that transcend gets a final
ranking (hall of fame) showing up how he achieved Transcendence (that will
remain to be decided).
(oh yes, having people feeding you a hundred tech 5 turns after you have
 started is a good way of getting a low Transcend ranking :)

> We have created obstacles that are high for old factions. The dragons in

Don't think "obstacles". Think "challenges". There are things some factions
can do that no one else does. Give them bragging rights (uh, how did you
get to place an orbital colony inside that sun's photosphere? Ahhh, trade
secret).

Long term playability is achieved by making sure you get fewer conflicts, or
conflicts between roughly equals.
--
Vincent ARCHER  				Email: archer@frmug.org

References

long-term fun
"Enno Rehling" <rehling@usa.net>
Tue, 02 Feb 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

long-term fun
"Enno Rehling" <rehling@usa.net>
Tue, 02 Feb 1999 00:00:00 +0000